.308 win with short/tight throat

[Evoken]

I have a savage 11 that I bought many years ago for my wife. It has only seen perhaps 2 boxes of shells through it. I am going to reclaim it as a dedicated cast shooter. It matches my model 11 which is my j-word deer slayer. The rifle slugged at .307/.3075.

The rifle has a really short throat. I have 2 .30 cal molds, a lee ctl312-160-2r, and a noe 311-299- 2r. Measuring my chamber and making up some dummies the boolits are set really deep, well past the crimp grooves. They are both coming in around 2.505 coal. This puts them well beyond the neck and into the case.

Will I have an issue with these? Pressure, gas checks dragging case neck, etc.?

Thanks,
Ken

[Outpost75]

Sounds like a sub-minimum, non-standard chamber. Do a pound cast and measure it.

If the throat and origin of rifling is less than the SAAMI minimum chamber I would, for a used gun out of warranty, ream the throat to conform to the standard dimensions, having a .310" diameter cylindrical ball seat 0.08" long ahead of the case mouth and a 3 degrees Basic (the half-angle per side) forcing cone. Chamber neck diameter should not be smaller than .345".

It is common for so-called "target" chambers to be smaller than the standard minimum chamber, however, doing so can create a dangerous condition wherein a tighter chamber neck does not provide adequate radial release clearance fr the bullet. This is especially true when attempting to load cast bullets which are generally of larger diameter than jacketed bullets appropriate for the caliber. Furthermore, if cast bullets must be deep seated in order to be chambered, it presents the risk of upsetting the bullet base where it protrudes below the neck-shoulder junction, into the powder space, such that the expanded bullet base locks against the shoulder cone of the chamber so that it must be squeezed down again and forced out through the tight-necked chamber.

This is a textbook recipe to set yourself up for a "KaBoom~!" moment.

So, I say again, do a pound cast of that chamber and measure it.

[Kraschenbirn]

Just like my Savage M10LE (law-enforcement model with 24" heavy-barrel threaded for brake or suppressor). Shoots sub-MOA with surplus M118LR JBs or SMKs but won't chamber RCBS 30-165SIL or Lyman 311091 seated to crimp groove. Switched to the Arsenal 309-188RN-PC (with bore-rider nose sized to .301) and problem went away...MOA or, perhaps, a little better @ 200 yds. There was an earlier thread on this...a couple years ago...with others reporting similar issues.

Bill

[Winger Ed.]

Check into 'bore riders'.

Cast boolits that are intended to ease on up, and be engraved by the rifling when they chamber.

[Evoken]

I will have to do a pound cast. As well.as look into bore rider boolits.
This is certainly not a "target" model. It was sold as a plain Jane basic hunting rifle, and came with a junko Simmons scope.
I bought it close to 20 years ago, so I'm sure it is out of warranty.
I certainly assumed that the boolit in the powder chamber was not such a good thing. Oh well, at least I asked and did not find out the hard way!

[Larry Gibson]

As Outpost75 suggests and others concur a pound cast or chamber cast is in order. Sounds like the nose diameter of your bullets is larger than the bore diameter. Simplest solution is to size the noses on your bullets to .299. NOE has the equipment to do that or and H&I die can easily be modified to use neck sizing bushings available from Redding, Hornady and NOE.

[robg]

my savage 116 308 is tight as well i have to full length size .lee 150/160/180 boolits sized 309 lee tumble lube and gas checked shoot well.i seat all my boolits so the base is in the case neck .

[gwpercle]

Try sizing the boolits to .308" diameter .
I know NOE moulds run to the large size and if his mould is marked .311" you can probably bet the farm it will be .311 ... but it might be worth a try to size them down .
When I started reloading (1967) , my only source of info was the Lyman Cast Bullet Manual and it said the boolits for the 30-06 data were sized .308" ... so that is the sizing die I bought and used for 35 years . Didn't know I should be sizing larger but my 1903-A3 Springfield shot just fine ... It has a very minimum chamber and throat ... I have since started using a .309" sizer die and don't see much if any difference .
You may want to try the Lee C309-170-F and size them .308" or .309"...seems to work well in my tight 03-A3 .

I was instructed to not seat the boolits so the base is below the case neck and the Lee 170 gr. F boolit solves this problem .
Gary

[Evoken]

I will have to get and try a .308 sizer.
How do the nose sizers work? Of course noe is put of stock on the body, but have both 300 and 299 nose sizers. The body looks like it works similar to the old style lee push through dies. Obviously you can't push a nose sizer all the way through or you would lose your driving band size. Are they as simple as push to driving band and pull out, like a traditional lubrisizer?

I would especially like the noe mold to work in the .308, I like the way it looks. Looking at pictures it is in fact a bore rider, but this particular rifle clearly has a tight bore.
The ones I PCed are coming in at .303 on the nose, lubed and sized are .301. The lubed boolits will seat slightly deeper into the bore, but still not enough.

[charlie b]

I shoot a Savage model 12BVSS in .308. I did a pound cast for mine when looking at bullet molds. The throat area measures about the same as the SAAMI drawings (as close as I can see the marks on the slug). Note: the rifle had over 1000rounds through it before I did this. But, when loading a cast bullet it will jam into the rifling sooner than I expected.

The rifle takes jacketed bullets as specified in loading manuals without a problem. But, some cast bullets have to be seated deeper in the case. I cannot tell if the angle of the beginning of the rifling is the issue or what.

I went to bore riders for this reason. Yes I use an NOE nose size die that fits the bore (mine is .302). And, yes, they are a push in, then eject. I made a spacer so they are sized to the same point each time. It is easy to go too far with some bullets. The bore rider I shoot now is an Accurate 'copy' of the Eagan at 210gn. Long bore section and rifling just barely 'prints' on the bullet.

I do load a non-bore riding bullet, the NOE 165gn XCB. Powder coated it is loaded with the base of the bullet well below the neck with the bullet lightly jammed into the rifling (about 1/8"). These are fired with reduced loads, around 1800fps. FWIW, these things shoot REALLY well. Less than MOA with the right load. I have had a few less than 1/2MOA groups with them.

PS my groove dia is just over .309 and I size the body to .310. I seat the bore riding bullets so the drive band is lightly jammed into the rifling.

[Evoken]

So just for my education I measured the other savage 11 which has had many rounds through it. I haven't slugged the barrel yet, but will get to that in short order. It has an even tighter throat, haha. I would have thought shooting a thousand or so rounds out of it may have opened it up at least a bit compared to the identical basically new rifle, well guess I was wrong haha.

So the next step will be to do a pound cast. I am a little apprehensive about doing this, as I'm always afraid of damaging something. Looks fairly cut and dry though. I just need to come up with a long brass rod. The rods I use for slugging are brass, but in 1' sections 5mm thick. Could I use these, or would I get to much bounce to get the pound cast correct?

[charlie b]

Just for the record here. If you do load gas checked bullets with the GC below the case neck, be warned. GC's could come off when firing and lodge in the case or even the bore.

There is a sticky on pound casting. Good info.

[Evoken]

Just for the record here. If you do load gas checked bullets with the GC below the case neck, be warned. GC's could come off when firing and lodge in the case or even the bore.

There is a sticky on pound casting. Good info.

Thank you for the warning! I have read the sticky on pound casting, and it certainly looks straight forward. With that being said for some reason I am always leery about doing stuff like that to firearms. Just don't want to do any damage to them. Not sure why, I have torn apart more complex and expensive things. I'm a cheap farm boy with old equipment and an old Harley, not afraid to tear into any one of those thing and those repairs can get much more costly if I damage something, haha.

I digress, again thanks for the heads up. I had already assumed that seating a gas check below the bottleneck was a no go. I will work on pound casting and look at getting the appropriate nose sizing equipment. If nothing else hopefully I will be able to use these boolits and molds in a krag that I'm slowly rebuilding. It should certainly have a generous bore. If not, I will melt them all down and send the molds down the road and start over.

.308 and 30-06 are my first attempt at cast for bottleneck brass. I have had great results with straighwalls, but am finding bottleneck to prove more involved......

[Evoken]

I ordered the equipment from noe for nose sizing to 300 and 299, also a 308 sizing bushing. I located a source for a 1/4"×3' brass rod so that will be on it's way as well. I have been reading until my eyes hurt and it is only posing more questions to me.....

Here is something I am having trouble wrapping my pea brain around.... Everything I have seen says you want at least bullet diameter into case. Which for sake of argument let's call it .308. Now, with max length .308 win brass the neck is only .303, trimmed brass knocks it down to .293. This is observed by both several load manuals as well as measuring my trimmed brass.
If one must stay in the neck with a gas check, this certainly does not leave much room inside of the brass at .293. Am I missing something here? Looking at countless boolit mold diagrams mostly on noe there are very few molds with this short of a base section to crimp groove.

Reading old threads on here regarding boolits and loads, powder type, primer type, etc I am not seeing much information on oal posted in many of these threads.

Like I said, I'm just trying to wrap my hamster brain around all this so thank you for all of your assistance fellas.
Ken

[charlie b]

When I measured my brass I get a neck length of right at 0.3". The throat area I have to work with is approx 0.120". So, yes, the bore size portion of the bullet needs to be 0.420" or less for me. And, yes, there are not many bullets that fit that criteria.

FWIW, I do not look at crimp groove. I look at the measurement to the forward drive band, or, on a tapered section, where the dia becomes larger than my .302 bore size (land dia).

If I did not shoot jacketed in mine I would have it throated a bit longer to alleviate all this difficulty.

[Evoken]

When I measured my brass I get a neck length of right at 0.3". The throat area I have to work with is approx 0.120". So, yes, the bore size portion of the bullet needs to be 0.420" or less for me. And, yes, there are not many bullets that fit that criteria.

FWIW, I do not look at crimp groove. I look at the measurement to the forward drive band, or, on a tapered section, where the dia becomes larger than my .302 bore size (land dia).

If I did not shoot jacketed in mine I would have it throated a bit longer to alleviate all this difficulty.

Thank you for all the insight and assistance sir. Once I get my new tools in I will revisit the project and hopefully I can get one of these 2 boolits to fit for me. If not it will be time to look for a more suitable mold.
I'm not real keen on having the rifle throated as I want the option to be able to still shoot jackets accurately out of it. That and i do not know of anyone local that could do this for me and it may be above my pay grade to self perform.
Thanks,
Ken

[JSnover]

Here is something I am having trouble wrapping my pea brain around.... Everything I have seen says you want at least bullet diameter into case. Which for sake of argument let's call it .308. Now, with max length .308 win brass the neck is only .303, trimmed brass knocks it down to .293. This is observed by both several load manuals as well as measuring my trimmed brass.
If one must stay in the neck with a gas check, this certainly does not leave much room inside of the brass at .293. Am I missing something here? Looking at countless boolit mold diagrams mostly on noe there are very few molds with this short of a base section to crimp groove.
Ken

I don't know how critical it is, since I was reloading for some twenty years before I heard of the One-Caliber-Deep rule. I like it, but it can't always be applied.

[charlie b]

I have seen the one caliber rule before. I never paid much attention to it mainly cause I have never had reason to seat bullets out further. If you talk to some BPCR folks you might find some .45/70 shooters who have very little bullet inside the case, just to get a bit more powder in there. They seem to shoot some pretty good target scores that way. They also take a great deal of care when chambering a cartridge.

Ken, the driving band portion of the bullet should be sized to fit at least groove dia. Not sure with gas checks but with plain base you run the risk of gas blow by which will cause leading. Also not sure if this would still be true with powder coat, but, I think it would still be a problem.

[Evoken]

I have seen the one caliber rule before. I never paid much attention to it mainly cause I have never had reason to seat bullets out further. If you talk to some BPCR folks you might find some .45/70 shooters who have very little bullet inside the case, just to get a bit more powder in there. They seem to shoot some pretty good target scores that way. They also take a great deal of care when chambering a cartridge.

Ken, the driving band portion of the bullet should be sized to fit at least groove dia. Not sure with gas checks but with plain base you run the risk of gas blow by which will cause leading. Also not sure if this would still be true with powder coat, but, I think it would still be a problem.

Agreed on the 45-70. Some of the lighter jacketed rounds I load absolutely do not seat at .457 into brass. So I guess that is just a suggestion to shoot for.

Since this particular rifle slugged at .307 I will try to size some to .308 when the new sizer comes. I will also try to nose size the bore rider to both .300 and .299. I certainly don't think that pc is the end all to leading, so I cannot count on that to solve the problem. Both my .30 cal molds are gas check and to my understanding that also does not completely solve blow by with an undersized boolit.

Hopefully i can get one to work out for me, and if not well so be it.

[oley55]

Without digging out my records, I had a Savage 10 in 308 and when I used a comparator to measure to the lands I kept coming up WAY, WAY short. I thought this can't be right. I blackened my bullet looking for marks to confirm I was actually reaching the lands. After I don't know how many attempts I realized the bullet was hanging up on a burr of some sort, because if I pushed with greater than normal force the bullet would almost jump forward to the lands and would leave a scratch on one side of the bullet jacket.

I didn't have my $23 cheapo bore scope back then, so I did a bunch of brushing and eventually loaded a couple low charged fire lap bullets pretty short to try knocking off the burr or whatever it was. That worked and I was able to reliable measure to/feel land contact at a normal length. But IMO that throat was always a bit tight/narrow, although I never did cast and measure it.

I am not suggesting this is your issue, rather just offering up something that may be contributing to it.

[RU shooter]

Maybe look into the cast bullet mould made for K31 aka 7.5 Swiss I know it drops a wee bit smaller than the average 308 bullets due to the Swiss having that short and tight throat

[waksupi]

Maybe look into the cast bullet mould made for K31 aka 7.5 Swiss I know it drops a wee bit smaller than the average 308 bullets due to the Swiss having that short and tight throat

There is a mold on the ebay site for a SR mold

[MostlyLeverGuns]

It is very easy hear scary stuff here. PROPERLY fitted Crimp-on gas checks do not just 'fall-off' cartridges when seated below the case neck. Folks loading lead in the 300 Savage and 300 Winchester Magnum know this. Can it happen, I suppose, should I wring my hands and wet my drawers over it? I DO NOT. I do shoot a lot of 300 Savage with the gas check below the neck, some .308's too(so they fit in my Savage 99's magazines, good accuracy to 200 yards plus. Maybe at longer ranges there could be some affect on the bullet below the case neck, but barrel/bullet friction causes heating issues far greater than powder burning inside the case. A 'bore-rider' would probably solve your issue with a 'tight throat'. If you have been using factory jacketed ammunition or reloading with jacketed bullets without problem, the bullet design could be the problem. If I was modifying the throat, I would be inclined to use a 1 1/2* throat at .309 rather than the 'factory standard'.

[blackthorn]

Quote “I'm not real keen on having the rifle throated as I want the option to be able to still shoot jackets accurately out of it.”

Maybe I am misguided, but I equate throat length with “freebore”. Based on that, I do not believe a little additional throat will be at all detrimental to accuracy using jacketed bullets. I base my belief on the fact that Weatherby rifles are built with a significant amount of freebore and there is no indication they are inaccurate.

[Outpost75]

In my experience shooting metallic silhouette and IBS Hunter Class benchrest competition with the .308, the SAAMI-dimensioned ball seat and origin of rifling as used in the standard velocity and pressure test barrel is fully capable of sub-half minute of angle five-shot groups, based upon hundreds of groups fired in competition with match prepped handloads assembled with the best quality hand-swaged bullets in J4 jackets. The SAAMI chamber also has adequate neck release clearance to safely fire cast bullets of .311" diameter in selected cases having a neck wall thickness not exceeding 0.012" and accuracy is fully adequate for competition.

The only advantage to the abrupt, short-throated .308 barrels now being sold is to reduce free bullet travel upon initial shot-start, when firing NATO specification military FMJ ammunition or lighter-weight, short ratio of length-to-diameter bullets weighing less than 150 grains, when fired in slow-twist barrels such as one turn in 14 inches, which is the custom in British Commonwealth countries whose competitions are based upon firing single-shot bolt guns with service-grade ammunition.

Typical 200-yard ten-shot groups with SAAMI-dimensioned .308 Win. chamber and 1 in 12 inch twist with 10X Unertl:

277119277120277121

[charlie b]

oley, when I check the bullet to lands I use a sharpie to check where the throat/rifling 'touch' the bullet. They bullets are engaging the lands with no other marks.

Ken, did you slug the chamber throat area or the muzzle? The muzzle end of mine is smaller than at the chamber. That's why I use .310" sized bullets. Actually a .309 NOE bushing but the bullets measure just under .310" (.3097).

MLG, I do not disagree with you as I have fired many bullets with the GC well below the case neck. But, I will only use crimp on gas checks (Hornady). When I powder coat I crimp on the GC and size the bullet before powder coating and then again after powder coating. I have not had one 'fall off'. I have tried to remove them as a 'test' and it requires a pair of pliers to pry them off, with significant 'tearing' of the lead heel of the bullet. I wrote the caution because there are many who use non-crimping GCs that may not be as well 'fixed' to the bullet as the crimp on variety.

Ed, I don't disagree at all with your results. I just like how mine shoots with jacketed the way it is so don't want to mess with the throat at this point. And, yes, I mostly shoot 155's with it when I am not shooting cast.

[Evoken]

Charlie, I will have to slug the receiver end and see what that tells me. I drove a lead ball from the muzzle to the receiver to arrive at my diameter.
It is definitely clear to me that the noe311299 clone I have is dropping fat boolits with lyman #2. The noses of the traditional lubed are coming in at
301 and as much as .302, I will have to nose size them to have any luck. Just because i could as a wait for my sizing tools to get here, i tried these boolits out in my krag receiver. It is an 1896 carbine dated around 1897 if i recall. The bore riders would not fit in the throat of this rifle either. You would think that a 124 year old military rifle would have a generous throat.
Clearly something is amiss with my boolits if I can't even get them to fit in this old warrior. Ypu would not think that between 4 different .30 caliber rifles, one being ancient, that they would all have extremely tight throats.

I need to go back to square one and see what I can do about shrinking the noses up on these babies. I am using lyman #2 just because that is what the lyman manual calls for. What alloy could I use that would produce a smaller boolit?

[Evoken]

About the gas checks, aren't they all crimped on? When I run them through either the lubrisizer or the push through dies that crimps them. I have 2 types of checks for 30 cal, some copper hornady and some aluminum from sage. When I run them through the sizer they seem to be on there to stay. I have to essentially destroy the boolit to get them off.

[charlie b]

No, they are not all crimp type. Some are straight sided.

Here is a site with a picture of a crimp type. Note the sides of the GC are tapered to bite into the shank.

http://www.lasc.us/CheckShankSize.htm

[charlie b]

When a nose rider does not fit the bore it is not a 'tight throat' that is the problem. The bullet nose is oversize. .302 bullet noses fit nicely in my bore. That is why I have a .302 nose size die and why slugging the chamber end of your barrel is important. I am surprised the Lyman bullets do not fit.

Just as a check can you color the bullets with a Sharpie marker, then try and chamber them (push hard enough to jam the bullet in there and them tap out from the muzzle)[Note: use a dummy cartridge, no primer or powder]. See where any imprints are on the bullet and how deep.

Hate to ask this but...are your bores clean of any copper or powder fouling?

[Evoken]

When a nose rider does not fit the bore it is not a 'tight throat' that is the problem. The bullet nose is oversize. .302 bullet noses fit nicely in my bore. That is why I have a .302 nose size die and why slugging the chamber end of your barrel is important. I am surprised the Lyman bullets do not fit.

Just as a check can you color the bullets with a Sharpie marker, then try and chamber them (push hard enough to jam the bullet in there and them tap out from the muzzle)[Note: use a dummy cartridge, no primer or powder]. See where any imprints are on the bullet and how deep.

Hate to ask this but...are your bores clean of any copper or powder fouling?

I see what you mean about the gas checks now. They are a bit fatter at the top to get the crimp. I know that the hornadies are crimped style based on what you good folks have told me. I will have to check the aluminum ones I have.

The fouling question is a good one to ask. To answer that question, yes they are clean. The .308 that I intend to make a cast shooter has only had a few boxes run through it. I also ran some copper solvent down it to make sure it was clean. Same as the other .308, cleaned real well with both hoppes elite foaming copper fouling remover followed up by good old #9. Both came out with spotless patches.
The 30-06 is most definitely clean, it has been cleaned of factory grease but has never been shot so I know that one is clean.

The old krag is a different story.... I thought it was relatively clean until I ran some copper solvent down it. It is soaking as we speak.

I will make up another couple of dummies and check to see what's what. I may cast some out of pure as that will be easier to work with and I should be able to use those in my pound cast also, I think.

Thanks again sir for helping me work on this problem. With your help, as well as other members here, I will get this issue worked out.

Also, back the the idea of chamber reaming. I started looking into this a bit. Can it really be as simple as running a pacific tool throat reamer in by hand? They certainly seem to work much like a regular old tap, hell I can do that! Still not sure I want to go down that road, but it really looks much easier to do than I had thought.

Thanks again,
Ken

[fcvan]

Also, back the the idea of chamber reaming. I started looking into this a bit. Can it really be as simple as running a pacific tool throat reamer in by hand? They certainly seem to work much like a regular old tap, hell I can do that! Still not sure I want to go down that road, but it really looks much easier to do than I had thought.

Thanks again,
Ken

I have seen threads where folks have reamers they loan out merely for the cost of postage, both ways. Another member here does chamber reaming for a lot of things, mostly handgun cylinders, IIRC. I would also so a search for videos where rifle chamber reaming is demonstrated. That might determine for you whether you can DIY or find a gunsmith that has experience in this process. I am pretty certain folks here will pipe in to share with you their knowledge/experience. Good bunch of folks out here.

[waksupi]

Also, back the the idea of chamber reaming. I started looking into this a bit. Can it really be as simple as running a pacific tool throat reamer in by hand? They certainly seem to work much like a regular old tap, hell I can do that! Still not sure I want to go down that road, but it really looks much easier to do than I had thought.

Thanks again,
Ken

The ones I have done have been done by hand.

[Evoken]

Charlie, I took your advise and slugged the breech side of the barrel. It was very telling! So I drove 2 .490 grease round balls into the chamber from the breech. The slug actually turned out well enough to measure much like a pound cast I believe.

Looking at the chamber Saami drawings this chamber is actually very close to spec. The free bore area slugs right at .310 and has a distance of .162". The saami diagram calls this to be .310 and .1637" respectively. The rifling slugs at .3075 and the bore at .300.

I believe once I nose size a few of the boolits to .300 and possibly size the driving bands to .308 I may be able to get them to fit.

Hopefully I get my tools from noe this week and we shall see....

Thanks again fellas,
Ken

[Evoken]

Also according to sage's and from.what I can tell the aluminum gas checks I have are crimp on as well.

I think that I now have all the information and understanding to make what I have work, hopefully. I did look into the swiss rifle molds, and they should definitely work if nothing else.

[charlie b]

Congratulations.

[Evoken]

Thank you for all your assistance sir. Hopefully I will report back with some loaded ammo that fits.
Ken

[mroliver77]

Anything new to my stable gets scrubbed clean and then a pound cast. I dont have to guess that way. I always have it to refer back to and it dont really ever change as far as I know.
MY WAY of pound cast. I very lightly lube barrel and chamber, very lightly. I take a fired case and cut off about half the neck. I fill the case with melted lead to just into whats left of the neck. I chamber round and drop a pure lead boolit down from the muzzle. I find the heavies for the caliber boolit I roll it between two sheets of steel until it will drop down the bore . Not too hard to do. I then pound on the rod with a heavy hand sledge a few times (just a few firm taps, DONT overdo it!) to upset the slug. I help the extraction with the pound rod and have a dang close representation of the chamber neck area( thus not needing to fuss with a pin gauge) the throat and the start of the bore and groove in barrel. With this info I can compare my boolits I cast, look for the closest fitting mould I can find, design a boolit to fit or know how much throating to do. It took me longer to type this than to do it.
I am just a hack and learned most of this on CB or from Veral Smiths book.

[Evoken]

Jumping back in on this with my new nose sizing dies..... what a pain they are, haha. Unfortunately the boolits that I had cast with lyman #2 are now too hard to get them to nose size properly. Which sucks, but oh well back in the pot they will go.
I cast some up from the noe 311-299 mold with some alloy that has less tin in it to try and get the noses shrunk down a bit. I am getting close, but I think I need to add a bit more pure to my pot. The mold is stamped 202gr., I am throwing about 197gr and still 301/302 at the nose. The nose sizing dies are working much better with the freshly cast and still soft boolits, so I've got that in my favor at least.

For you guys that are nose sizing, what are you using to extract the boolit from the die?

[charlie b]

NOE's sizing 'kit' includes a tool that accepts a nose punch for your bullet (or a flat punch). It goes in the top of the body die and pushes the bullet back out. If you don't have that tool I can understand your frustration.

I got tired of tapping it with a mallet and made a lever for the top of the press that bears against the top punch. I'll take a picture of it today so you can see how it works.

[Evoken]

NOE's sizing 'kit' includes a tool that accepts a nose punch for your bullet (or a flat punch). It goes in the top of the body die and pushes the bullet back out. If you don't have that tool I can understand your frustration.

I got tired of tapping it with a mallet and made a lever for the top of the press that bears against the top punch. I'll take a picture of it today so you can see how it works.

I see.... I ordered the sizer that fits in the app press. I guess I will have to order the sizer body kit for a regular single stage as well.

Otherwise, although a pain in the butt a #2 pencil fits in the .300 neck die.

[charlie b]

So, you have an APP and got the adaptor for NOE bushings?

Then, yeah, that is going to be a PITA for nose sizing.

[Evoken]

Indeed it is. I did get enough sized to be able to make up some dummies at least and see if I'm headed in the right direction.

I was able to get dummies of both 30 cal molds to properly chamber in the 30-40. I need to take the 308 down and check it out.

I think I'm on the right track, now I need to cut my tin just a bit more. I'm thinking of using some high antimony lead mixed in. The alloy I am using is soft, soft; I smushed some of them when I lubed them in the lyman.

[Krag 1901]

Evoken:
For my Krag the 314299 worked well sized at .310/11". I had no problem seating to the crimp groove~3.000" COL. My linotype boolets are .305 just behind the ogive.
My Ruger 77 .308W ( Rifling starts ~2.250") also loved the 314299s don't remember the COL, but pretty much at crimp groove as I recall. The Lee 309-200-R boolet is almost as good, and is a bore rider that should work in .308 w/o nose sizing. Another Lee the 312-155-2R works well in the .308 as it has a pointier nose shape than the 312-1602R Which work better in my Krag sized .311".
I've had real good results with 2400, IMR-4198, H322 and RL10x. With higher than "starting" loads.

By "starting" I mean Lyman #3 levels.
I found 18-29 gr 2400, 24-25 gr IMR-4198, ~30 Gr H-322 and RL10x gave me the best accuracy, but I didn't push any higher, yet. There seems to be a step function where the powders really start to burn more consistently and produce higher velocities per grain of powder.

[Evoken]

Evoken:
For my Krag the 314299 worked well sized at .310/11". I had no problem seating to the crimp groove~3.000" COL. My linotype boolets are .305 just behind the ogive.
My Ruger 77 .308W ( Rifling starts ~2.20") also loved the 314299s don't remember the COL, but pretty much at crimp groove as I recall. The Lee 309-200-R boolet is almost as good, and is a bore rider that should work in .308 w/o nose sizing. Another Lee the 312-155-2R works well in the .308 as it has a pointier nose shape than the 312-1602R Which work better in my Krag sized .311".
I've had real good results with 2400, IMR-4198, H322 and RL10x. With higher than "starting" loads.

Thanks for the tips. I will be trying 2400 with the lee boolit and I think 4198 with the noe one. For starters anyway. For the Krag that is.

I believe that my main problem with the noe mold is my alloy. With lyman 2 it is casting fat noses, no matter how hot i preheat or have the alloy temp at.

[tomme boy]

Fire lap it and be done with it. Savages have the worst inside finish of all the makers. It will clean up the rest of the barrel while you lap the throat in.